The Last Cowboy: A Life of Tom Landry

As the coach during professional football’s most storied era, Tom Landry transformed the gridiron from a no-holds-barred battlefield to the highly-technical chess match it is today. With his trademark fedora and stoic facade, he was a/p>/em>

Overview

As the coach during professional football’s most storied era, Tom Landry transformed the gridiron from a no-holds-barred battlefield to the highly-technical chess match it is today. With his trademark fedora and stoic facade, he was a man of faith and few words, for twenty-nine years guiding “America’s Team” from laughingstock to well-oiled machine, with an unprecedented twenty consecutive winning seasons and two Super Bowl titles. Now, more than a decade after Landry’s death, acclaimed biographer Mark Ribowsky takes a fresh look at this misunderstood legend, telling us as much about our country’s obsession with football as about Landry himself, the likes of whom we’ll never see again.

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Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

★ 09/23/2013rom 1960 to 1988, Tom Landry was the head coach of the Dallas Cowboys, taking the football team from expansion joke to a big, bad cultural empire now known as “America’s Team.” In Ribowsky’s authoritative biography, Landry appears more stoic king than coach, his ever-present fedora serving as a crown. He ruled with an unrelenting rigidity, whether it was viewing players (including legends) as replaceable parts or sticking with his landmark offensive and defensive systems, even as the game outgrew those once-novel innovations. At the same time, Landry was a devout Christian who lived by a simple code of honor—he essentially agreed to coach at one point on a handshake deal—only to get squeezed out by the growing corporate nature of pro football. Ribowsky’s thorough examination of a surprisingly complicated man offers original reporting, which serves here as merely a complement to this impressively researched work. But in looking back at the legendary Landry’s life (1924–2000), Ribowsky (Howard Cosell) reveals how much the game has changed since the coach’s heyday while providing an eloquent, honest tribute to a football genius. 16 pages of illustrations. (Nov.)

Booklist

“Fascinating…. Readers looking for a recap of one of football’s greatest innovators and coaches will be enthralled.”

Allen Barra - Dallas Morning News

“[A] huge and hugely entertaining biography…. Extraordinary…. That Ribowsky, an outstanding biographer with books on Al Davis, Satchel Paige and Howard Cosell to his credit, doesn’t idolize Landry across the book’s 640 pages makes his judgment all the keener.”

Library Journal

Tom Landry spent 40 years in professional football, most notably 29 years as the original coach of the oft-celebrated Dallas Cowboys. Landry was one of the most innovative and influential coaches in NFL history, essentially inventing his own offensive and defensive systems that spread throughout the league. Beginning as the defensive coach of the Giants in the 1950s, the cool technician from Texas was the polar opposite of that team's volatile offensive coach, Vince Lombardi, who would be his chief rival in the 1960s. Although Ribowsky (Howard Cosell) is gratuitously snarky about Landry's religious and political beliefs at times, he recounts Landry's life honestly, avoiding both distortion and hagiography while portraying a stoic, flawed man of honor. The one failing of the book is that there is little about Landry's family life during the time he was coaching. VERDICT Nonetheless, this is a triumph of extensive research and interviews. It will be welcomed by all football fans.

Kirkus Reviews

2013-09-28A prolific sportswriter submits a meaty biography of one of the NFL's legendary coaches. Except for his World War II service and 10 years spent in New York, most notably as a player, then as defensive coach for the Giants, Tom Landry (1924–2000) was all Texas. Born, raised and educated in the Lone Star State, Landry returned in 1960 to coach the expansion Dallas Cowboys for a record 29 years. After a rocky start, the stoic Landry, among the game's most influential innovators, turned the franchise into a consistent winner and a huge source of pride for a football-obsessed state and an up-and-coming city looking to live down the shame of the JFK assassination. Although he was revered by fans and the media until new owner Jerry Jones unceremoniously fired him, Landry's buttoned-up life poses difficulties for any biographer. Ribowsky (Howard Cosell: The Man, the Myth, and the Transformation of American Sports, 2011, etc.) solves most of them by coming at the coach from all angles: thoroughly exploring the Texas connection; interviewing his widow for personal and family stories that open a window on the interior life of the closemouthed coach; examining his complex relationships with some of his greatest stars--Don Meredith, Roger Staubach, Bob Hayes--who vainly sought his approval; delineating his role in the Cowboy organization that featured swashbuckling owner Clint Murchison, shrewd president Tex Schramm and super scout Gil Brandt; explaining the complex schemes behind Landry's exciting brand of football; teasing out his tortured handling of troubled players like Hollywood Henderson and Duane Thomas; measuring the family man and devout Christian against the seemingly bloodless coach who appeared to prize his system over people, who turned a blind eye to the decidedly heathen lifestyle of so many of his players. If Ribowsky never quite penetrates to Landry's core, he still provides as complete a picture of "God's Coach" as we're likely to get. A must-read for fans of "America's Team" and, given Landry's impact on the game, for Cowboy haters too.

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Meet the Author

Mark Ribowsky is the author of fifteen books, including Ain't Too Proud to Beg: The Troubled Lives and Enduring Soul of the Temptations, the New York Times Notable Book Don’t Look Back: Satchel Paige in the Shadows of Baseball, and, most recently, Dreams to Remember: Otis Redding, Stax Records, and the Transformation of Southern Soul. He lives in Florida.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

The Last Cowboy: A Life of Tom Landry 3 out of 5based on
0 ratings.
5 reviews.

Anonymous

More than 1 year ago

Americas Team.

Andrew_of_Dunedin

More than 1 year ago

Briefly &ndash; I find it ironic that one of the longest books that I've ever read in my life is a biography of a football personality. Reading &ldquo;The Last Cowboy&rdquo;, I can understand how trimming the experiences of Tom Landry would be difficult if one wants to capture the full depth and breadth of a larger-than-life individual.
This book is also the story of the New York Giants and the Dallas Cowboys during their respective Landry years &ndash; after all, one simply cannot remove the football team from the man's life, as it WAS such a large part of who he was.
Well researched, well written, and a nice read &ndash; frankly, I admit that I was pleasantly surprised that the book managed to hold my interest for its over 600 pages, but it did.
RATING: 4 stars,.
DISCLOSURE: This book was provided free of charge by the publisher without obligation. I'm sure they will appreciate an unbiased posted review, and will be grateful that it turned out to be favorable. (As far as prompt &hellip; well, 2 out of 3 ain't bad ...)

Anonymous

More than 1 year ago

Anonymous

More than 1 year ago

epm54338

More than 1 year ago

If I added up all the factual errors I've caught in books that I've read in my life, that total would be less than what I came across while browsing through this joke of a book. The &quot;author&quot; must have been drunk and never bothered to proofread his own copy. It's apparent that the &quot;publisher&quot; doesn't employ the services of fact checkers and the hacks who were asked to provide blurbs for the cover never bother to read the manuscript. I'd be embarrassed to put my name on this garbage.